Dinosaur Summer (33 page)

The death eagle's screams and the sounds of dying communisaurs echoed behind them.

Chapter Twelve

They walked through a stretch of dense forest north of the mound and east of the ant field. Hiking for the rest of the afternoon in weary single-file, they stopped by a narrow, deep creek and drank, then picked clusters of hard purple berries and ate what they could of the raw fruit. OBie pointed out trees filled with another spiky fruit and they ate some of those, but Shellabarger, ever the expert on the diets of creatures away from home, warned that too much wouldn't do them any good. "We need meat," he said, and he and Wetherford walked ahead while the others rested.

Anthony sat beside Peter on a fallen log. Something was bothering him, but for the time being he was keeping himself in check--waiting, Peter thought, for when they were alone. Peter could always feel a good fatherly bawling-out when it was coming. Sometimes it took days to emerge into the open--a delay he always hated.

Anthony rubbed his finger along a series of deep furrows chewed out of the log. "Some of Sammy's cousins might have done this," he said. Peter pulled up a patch of bark. A few thumb-sized yellow grubs crawled beneath, black heads rising indignantly at the glare.

"Yum," Peter said, thinking of Billie's comment on his dream.

Anthony looked down on the larvae with a furrowed brow. He plucked up one of the grubs, examined it, suddenly narrowed his eyes as if daring Peter to do something, then popped it in his mouth and chewed quickly. He swallowed and his face shifted expressions with comic swiftness. "Iate it," he said.

"Tastes like butter, does it?" OBie asked from where he and Ray sat, a few meters along the log.

"Tastes like bug," Anthony said.

"Better cooked, but we don't have a fire," OBie said.

"It's all right raw," Anthony said, but he did not appear convinced. "Your turn," he told Peter, a little too sharply.

Peter smiled suavely, picked up the second grub, and swiftly bit and swallowed. He wasn't going to be outdone by his father, not this time, not in this way. "Nutty," he said.

Ray stepped forward, bent to examine the revealed larvae, and stood again with hands on hips. "I've eaten raw lizard. I can eat anything." He picked up the grub and lifted it to his mouth, then stopped.

"He who hesitates is lost," Anthony suggested.

Ray ate the grub. "Tastes bitter," he said, and looked back at OBie.

"Meat and potatoes," OBie said, shaking his head. "Strictly meat and potatoes."

Wetherford and Shellabarger returned just before dusk, empty-handed. "The river's in a deep gully right to the edge of the plateau," Wetherford said. "Shoots out into space for about half a mile straight down. No place to stop and drink along the way."

"There's a flat grassland about two miles north," Shellabarger said. "According to the old maps, it stretches from the south-central lake to the plateau's eastern edge. We can make better time if we cross the plain. Of course, we'll also expose ourselves to more danger."

Wetherford put on a fatalistic face and shrugged. "Nothing we haven't faced already," he said.

"The grassland is where Jimmie Angel came down in '35," OBie said. "We might find his aircraft."

"There's five or six crash sites up here," Wetherford said. "Hotshots from the mining companies always want to take their girlfriends over the tepuis. One went down on El Grande last year."

"If that bush pilot sees us on the plain," Shellabarger said, "he might decide to land and rescue us, dictator or no. There's bound to be reward money."

Wetherford pursed his lips. "Not bloody likely. The Army has slammed the gate hard on El Grande. No pilot wants to be clapped in irons." "It's the PBY or nothing," OBie said.

"I wouldn't put too much faith in your producers in New York, either," Wetherford said.

OBie lifted his eyebrows and rubbed his arm: each to his own comforts.

***

They spent a hungry but dry night beneath the forest canopy, listening to the passage of monkey-sized animals through the trees and the gentle cheeping of small night birds. Anthony found more grubs in the morning, and this time OBie ate several. They washed away the experience with slices of half green spiky fruit. Peter had a stomachache throughout the morning.

They emerged from the forest onto the grassland at noon. Shellabarger kept his rifle ready as they waded through the hip-high green grass. In boggy swales, the grass sometimes grew over their heads, topped with feathery fronds that swayed and rustled in the steady northerly breeze.

After two miles, they sat beneath the spreading boughs of a thick, gnarly-trunked tree none of them could identify. Its leaves formed tight curls in shadow, but spread into six- or seven-lobed fans in sunlight. Dozens of the same kind of trees dotted the grassland.

Peter watched Anthony carefully. Today, he seemed perfectly calm, the storm clouds gone.

After a brief doze, they continued. According to Wetherford's watch, they encountered their first herd of sauropods at one o'clock, browsing among the broad-leaf trees: imposing saltasaurs, the biggest almost forty feet long, with serpentine necks and tails and spike-armored backs. The herd numbered about twenty, and half grown young stayed close to the center.

"Not many of these left now," Shellabarger said. "They're ancient beasts, like Sammy's kind. The death eagles are going to have them all in a few decades. The lycos don't mess with them."

Peter watched the graceful browsers work over a forty-foot-high tree. They pulled and chewed the leaves and branches with the steady deliberation of hungry caterpillars. In a few hours, judging from the condition of trees nearby, they would leave it a denuded skeleton.

"Worse than elephants," Shellabarger said. "Things have to grow fast around here just to keep up."

Peter thought of the death eagles and venators and the animals they preyed upon, and the delicate balances between plants and animals. He wasn't just a city boy anymore. Kahu Hidi was creeping into his personality.

They resumed their walk.

Anthony kept close to Peter. They veered off ten or fifteen yards from the broken line of their companions. Peter kept his eyes on the horizon, trying to see any hunting animals before they saw him--and also to avoid provoking his father. Despite the earlier calm, perhaps because of it, he knew that the storm was about to break. Anthony stepped ahead of him, head lowered. "I thought you were dead," he said.

Peter smiled nervously. "I was sure you were--" he began.

"You ran away."

"I didnot, " Peter said.

"You knew we should have stayed together, but youran. "

Peter faced his father, stunned by this. "I was chased by an animal," he said.

Anthony dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "You should have done everything you could to stay with us. Together, we had a much better chance."

"I tried to find you."

"That was a little too late, wasn't it?" Anthony said, his face very dark.

"I did not run away," Peter said again. They stood in the tall grass, less than two feet from each other. All else seemed to fade. Anthony stared at him with eyes like coals--accusing, furious.

"Christ, I've never . . . felt so miserable in my entire life. I thought I'd lost you--but you, my son . . . seeing yourun. "

"You think I'm a coward?" Peter demanded. This was something he would not take even from his own father.

"Actions, my lad," Anthony growled. "Louder than any words."

Peter felt the tears welling up, the helpless rage he always felt when confronting this force of nature who happened to be his father, this unreasonable and unpredictable man who walked like a cheetah and carved rude poems on the wall and got drunk just when things might be getting dangerous and attracted all the beautiful women in the world--and who stuck with none of them. Peter held back the tears but not the ill-chosen words, meant to sting his father--just as his mother would have stung him. "I thought you were dead. You didn't come and find me!"

"We looked all overhell for you."

"Billie found me. You could have!"

"I certainly tried," Anthony said, a little of the glow fading from his eyes. But now it was Peter's turn for the rage to peak.

"You always think I'm a coward," he said, his voice low. "You always expect more from me. And no matter what I do, I always disappoint you. How long have you been waiting to drag me into some awful adventure, just to make me prove myself to you?"

"That's a lie," Anthony said. "You wanted this as much as I did."

"I am not a liar, and I am not a coward!" Peter shouted. "Damn you, I am as good as you, but . . ." He did not know how to say what needed to be said: in his mind, the words appeared,I am not you. I am not like you. But all he could manage was to shake his head, hold up his fist, and shout, "I survived! I didn't die! And I did not run because I was afraid!" Anthony held out his hand to touch Peter, and his eyes were flat now, listless, drained. "Peter, I'm--"

Suddenly there was OBie weighing in, standing with feet spread beside them and poking at Anthony's shoulder. "Pardon an old man for butting into a family affair, butleave the boy alone! My God, man, he's a fine boy!"

Anthony retreated but OBie stayed with him, poking, poking.

"You don't know what it's like not having so fine a boy! Why, if I could go back, if I could take away the years and have my own son here, with me--"

"I'm sorry," Anthony said. "I couldn't stand the thought of losing him. It's been eating at me."

OBie stood with his chest rising and falling, his cheeks apple-red, finger still extended. The finger curled now, less accusing. "He's a strong and brave boy and he did what he had to. No blaming him, and no blaming yourself. We're all in this. We're all men. It shouldn't turn sour this way."

"You're right," Anthony said. He raised his hands, placating. "I was way off base."

Peter saw his father was about to apologize, but his own heat was still too intense to allow that. He stalked away through the grass. Ray watched him, sad and silent, and Shellabarger stood facing north, away from the scene. Wetherford plucked at a thick blade of grass.

Ten minutes later, they took up the hike again, by silent agreement spread out across the flat ground, and the sun rose high overhead. Peter stumped steadily through the grass, paying little attention to where he was going. The minutes passed. His head filled with dark thoughts.

When they had reunited, he had felt a surge of hope and a deep sense of the nature of true adventure. They had beaten the odds; they had all survived. They seemed enchanted, this little group . . .

Now he did not care how far from the group he strayed.

It seemed hours later, he looked up and saw the others were several dozen yards to his right.

Anthony called for him to rejoin them. Peter stopped dead, his arms hanging, still feeling the burn. He stared at the ground, at his feet, more to avoid looking at Anthony than for any other reason.

He peered between the blades of grass. Shiny black bodies welled up from holes in the earth. His boots were covered with them.

Ants. Half an inch to over an inch long.

Peter froze. For a fraction of a second, he thought of the ant field and the death eagle getting cleaned. If he just stayed still, he thought, they might not bite. But a deep shuddering horror collided with his anger and exhaustion, and before he could stop himself he jumped and stamped his boots and brushed ants from his pants legs and lifted the pants and scooped them from his ankles. Ants clung to his fingers. He ran toward Anthony, shaking his hands as if trying to fly."Veintecuatros!" he shouted. "Oh, Jesus, Father, ants, ants!"

A knife blade seemed to stab his ankle and another his hand. Anthony caught his son in his arms and quickly smashed ants with sharp palm slaps on his hands, arms, and back. They danced like frantic scarecrows in the grass, and Peter howled.

He saw a cloud rush over the land black as tar. In the middle of the cloud his father's face appeared, screwed up in anguish. Ray and OBie called out his name but it did not seem familiar and the pain was too much. He saw it would be easy to just fall up to the sky, into the darkness.

It sucked him in like a well of thick crude oil.

Chapter Thirteen

All the things that happened next were as real as could be. He lay in dark dirt. His body hurt all over and he thought his skin would split open. Then it did split open, but he felt much better and he saw himself emerge from the split skin like the white meat of a baked potato, but his white stuff was not fluffy; he was a very large maggot, bigger than a mountain.

Boy,he told himself,no wonder it hurt, with all of that inside me.

The maggot was alone. Peter did not know whether that was because he had eaten all the other maggots, or they had been scared away. Either way, he hoped they were not offended.

He crawled for a while over the earth and the jungle felt like sand beneath him, the trees were so small. His skin began to hurt again and he wondered if he would become a butterfly or a beetle, but when his neck split, neither butterfly nor beetle crawled from the giant, shriveled casing. Instead, Peter saw he was a very large cat covered with spots, a jaguar. This was okay. He knew he had a name at last--Mado --and his skin did not hurt.

Jaguar/Peter lay on the Earth for a long time, waiting for his wet slick fur to dry, but it rained incessantly and the Earth was covered with mud. This irritatedMado and in his anger he swelled and again his skin began to hurt. He opened his jaws as wide as he could and out between tongue and teeth crawled a huge boy, all strong and brown. But this boy could not talk, nor could he eat, because he had left his tongue and teeth inside the jaguar skin.

The huge boy was happy at first because his skin did not hurt. But soon he became hungry. Because he had no tongue he could not complain and there were no animals or plants large enough to be worth eating anyway, so he moaned and rolled in the mud. With his face so close to the Earth, he saw the ground was covered with tiny plants and animals. All of them were male.